An
interval, however, sufficient for digesting the little swallowed, is
obtained before the appetite again revives, and a fresh supply is
demanded.
At the expiration of a week or so it is essentially necessary, and
with some children this may be done with safety from the first day of
suckling, to nurse the infant at regular intervals of three or four
hours, day and night. This allows sufficient time for each meal to be
digested, and tends to keep the bowels of the child in order. Such
regularity, moreover, will do much to obviate fretfulness, and that
constant cry, which seems as if it could be allayed only by constantly
putting the child to the breast. A young mother very frequently runs
into a serious error in this particular, considering every expression
of uneasiness as an indication of appetite, and whenever the infant
cries offering it the breast, although ten minutes may not have elapsed
since its last meal. This is an injurious and even dangerous practice,
for, by overloading the stomach, the food remains undigested, the
child's bowels are always out of order, it soon becomes restless and
feverish, and is, perhaps, eventually lost; when, by simply attending
to the above rules of nursing, the infant might have become healthy and
vigorous.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25